Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Dreams, visions, and revelation. 1-6-14

Family! Happy New Year!

Remember how there's
always that guy who has a miraculous story about someone dreaming about him as
a missionary then the guy ends up knocking on that person's door and converts
him? Well... here's my story:

We were sitting in church during sacrament
meeting and a young single adult looking kid gets up to bear his testimony.
I've never met him before since he's never been to church since I've been
here. He begins his testimony by saying that he admits he hasn't really
been active for the last while and that kind of stuff. Then he says that
Saturday night,he had a dream... In his dream, he saw a
missionary. The missionary told him to repent and come back to church.
He didn't recognize the missionary, but he vividly remembered his face.
Because of this, he decided to come back to church. He continued
his testimony by saying that when he walked into church today, he saw the
missionary who spoke to him in his dream - guess who the missionary was?
Well, after sacrament meeting, my companion went to talk to him as I was
talking with other members. I looked over towards my comp. and he was
motioning me to come over. I sit down and my companion has the kid tell
the story again. At the end of the story, I'm just dying to know who the
elder is. I ask. He looks me in the eyes and says, "It was
you, Elder." ....WOW. I honestly didn't know how to react.
It's a very special experience... More updates next week!

And so the rest of the week was not quite as
awe-striking, but it was still super cool. It was transfer week!
This is basically the week where the people who have been here for two
years go home, the new missionaries come in, and everyone else here gets
jumbled around and transferred to their new areas. Two highlights:
driving the whole mission taking people to their areas, and picking the new
missionaries up from the airport. As we were leaning against the fence,
waiting for the new missionaries to walk off their little dual propeller plane,
I had a total recollection of MY first day in the field... I can't believe that
was almost a year and a half ago!

Also, New Year's Resolutions. Right.
Last year, my goal was to continue in all I was doing in terms of
missionary work. That was an easy one since I was still going to be in
the Philippines for all of 2013. Now though, that'll be different since
I'll be home for almost half the year. My goal this year is pretty
simple: Break it down, day by day, and just try to improve myself little
by little each day. This leads me to the yearly goal of keeping all the
great habits and standards I've adopted on my mission. That's it!

Pictures:

1. Madsen and I bought jackets since we
always get cold in the office.